Ordinary Time (Between Heaven and Hell)
by Alexandra Lyman
Summary: Demons don't celebrate the feast days of saints, but on the day dedicated to lovers Killian Jones is willing to make an exception. As long as that exception takes the form of Emma Swan, that is. Will his angel answer his prayer on a cool February eve in Venice, Italy? This fic is part of my Between Heaven & Hell AU series and probably won't make much sense if you haven't read it.


**Author's Notes: I've written several extra scenes for Between Heaven and Hell that take place over different holidays (Christmas, Easter, etc) and this is the Valentine's Day fic. While the holiday itself is long over by now, I'm posting it anyway, while it takes place on Feb 14 I think you guys will still enjoy it even if it's not quite "in season" anymore. And I'm still working on both the main BH&H fic and Beyond the Horizon as well, neither one has been abandoned.**

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No one did revelry quite like Venice.

Old-fashioned lanterns turned the famous canals to rivers of gold, music filled the_ piazzas _from dusk til dawn and the citizenry moved with ease from formal, black tie balls in ancient family piles to after parties held in underground clubs where the dress code was definitely _less is more._ High fashion models rubbed stylish elbows with counts, new money flirting with old nobility, tourists came from far and wide as they had since time immemorial to gape at the splendour and over every graceful stone bridge and behind every famous church a dark alley beckoned, where purse snatchers slipped away with their ill-gotten gains and prostitutes of both genders fell to their knees to offer their own form of worship, for a price.

Venice dazzled all the senses, but there was a dark underbelly hidden in the floating city build around the stolen relics of one of the holiest of saints, sin and salvation linked as two sides of the same coin.

Killian flipped a gold piece over his knuckles with a dexterity no mortal could hope to achieve and into a medieval fountain. It was a round pool topped with a statue of an angel rising from a platform in the centre, stone wings unfurled against the late afternoon sun and one hand outstretched over the water, the delicate, carved fingers just out of reach to anyone standing below. The coin was a _scudi _that was as old as the fountain itself,from the days long ago when the doges ruled over Venice as kings in all but name. It was rare and valuable, a collector's dream (that some would even literally sell their souls to obtain) but he let it fall into the water without a second thought with a flash as it caught the light and reflected it back for a heartbeat before sinking down to disappear into the pile of more humble copper pennies at the bottom. He slipped his hands back in his pockets and glanced up at the angel, a wish wasn't all that different from a prayer after all and the blank-faced statue must have heard innumerable requests over the centuries from the many who passed through the city and stopped to make an offering at her marble feet.

Would his angel hear him, and finally grant what he wanted above all else? Only time would tell, and he had even more of that to spare than he had gold coins.

He strolled the narrow streets for a while, alone with his memories of the old days while the city teemed around him, packed even more to the gills than usual. It was a day dedicated to lovers, and as the sun set and the stars rose above doey-eyed couples giggled in arched doorways and held hands over bottles of wine, making eyes and making love (not in public, at least not mostly, those dark alleys were playing host to more than just paid trysts tonight) although, strangely enough, the lust he could feel hot in the air was tempered with something else, something that his demonic senses instinctively shied away from and made him want to retreat back into the shadows until it was safely gone again. Still, he meandered on, past stalls selling trinkets like carnival masks and blown glass ornaments that had stayed open late to take advantage of the festivities (avarice, he approved of that), pausing here and there to examine the wares and plucking a single red rose from a bouquet dangling from the hand of a young woman with her arms around her paramour's neck and her eyes closed into his kiss. Neither one noticed the tiny theft, too wrapped up in each other to see the danger that lurked so close. Killian could have used his unholy influence to spark a sudden argument, insert some disharmony into the romantic tableaux as he was meant to, _bound _to, stoking the flames of jealousy by turning the man's head towards a winsome young_ signora _instead of his beloved or greed in the desire for a much more lavish gift than mere flowers, but he stayed his hand and continued on a path only he could see, following his own map through the ancient city of mariners like the pirate he had been, once upon a time.

At the end there was a treasure much more valuable than gold, a light amidst the darkness, one that had always enticed instead of repelled. Rose in hand, Killian waited patiently in a small _piazza_ ringed with packed _trattorias_ and bustling wine bars. Venice's climate was fairly mild in the winter, but his unusually warm breath turned immediately to fog as soon as it hit the cooler air, forming a cloud of twisted serpents that writhed and slithered away into nothingness with each measured exhale. As he bided his time his attention focused on a pair of young men on the other side of the square who were chain-smoking cigarettes and cat-calling every woman who walked by, clearly full of both too much _machismo_ and too much liquor. He watched the flecks of burning ash fall to the ground with each careless flick of their wrists, the glowing tips turning the crimson of infernal fire as they took deep drags and filled their lungs with thick, noxious smoke. Their voices got louder and more lewd as his influence washed over them, drawing a demon's attention was never a good thing and Killian's lips split in a rictus grin of amusement while he fanned the flames a little higher, a little hotter. They were unaware of his presence, but it loosened what little inhibitions they had left as his corruption spread like the smoke and filled the spaces between every dark impulse, every forbidden desire, letting them run riot until nothing else was left.

A distinctively feminine figure appeared in the misty haze and started across the _piazza_, the heels of her boots making no sound on the cobblestones but drawing every eye nonetheless in an instant and Killian could feel the sinful anticipation rolling off the two men in waves at the sight of her. Long blonde hair fell down the back of a leather jacket the bright red of heart's blood and it was like waving a matador's scarlet cape in front of a bull to the two idiots who were about to discover the sword hidden underneath instead. If Killian's attention was dangerous, _hers _was even more perilous for mortal souls, especially ones puffed up like peacocks on their own arrogance. He idly twirled the rose back and forth between his fingers and drew his thumb across the velvety petals, his own anticipation for what was to come a pleasant hum under his skin.

"Did you miss me?"

Emma accepted the gift he offered with an innocent smile and a hint of a bow, his manners impeccable and beyond reproach while her own expression was caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation. The two cat-callers were still there, but the busy _piazza _was considerably more quiet now than an angel had descended from the heavens and rendered them both completely mute with nothing more than a look. They were literally struck dumb, opening and closing their mouths with nothing coming out while passersby stared at them curiously, unaware of the role the damned and the divine had played in the little bit of street theatre and that Heaven and Hell both were present only a few feet away in the form of a dark-haired man and a blonde woman, the lone raven and the graceful dove.

But then again, mortals were usually blind to what went on right under their own noses.

"_Ciao_, Killian," she said with a roll of her eyes, sidestepping his question but he didn't really care, his name on her lips was a summons that fanned the flames within and made him burn even hotter under his own black leather jacket. Steam rose from the ground from the heat he was generating, Venice was eternally sinking into the sea and the ground was perpetually damp as a result. He was unable to resist a direct summoning and when she turned he followed, away from the lights and the laughter and into a quieter, residential section of the city where the music faded away and the shadows cut deep. Red leather met rough stone when he backed her into a wall, his taller form easily concealing them from any prying eyes, the raven enfolding the dove and pinning her fast.

"_Beata angela," _he breathed hot into the shell of her ear, fingers teasing just under the edge of the leather at her waist. "Did you miss me?"

Her own small hands toyed with his belt buckle for a moment before dipping lower and his eyes slammed shut at the feel of her palm sliding over where he burned the most.

Or second most, but he refused to acknowledge the dull ache in the left side of his chest.

Emma gave a little squeeze that almost made his knees give out and teased right back. "It feels more like you're the one who missed me, _Damnate._"

"Angels aren't supposed to play dirty," he muttered, unable to stop the desperate rock of his hips into her welcoming touch.

"And demons aren't supposed to celebrate the feast days of saints, even if everyone else has forgotten what this day originally was," she shot back. "You're not the only one who breaks the rules."

Killian lifted his head and matched her wry smile. "Point taken."

He had broken more rules than he could count because of her, what was one more? Their foreheads touched and they just stood like that for a moment, the saint and the sinner, angel and demon, come together in a city barely tethered to the earth and caught eternally between falling below and rising above with each roll of the tides.

…

...

The small _pensione_ where she had a room for the night had one been a convent, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by the demon next to her with eyes the same shade and sharpness as Ceylon sapphires. He silently read the inscription on the faded plaque next to the door that described the building's illustrious history with a raised brow while Emma waited for the inevitable smart-ass remark.

"Inviting the fox right into the henhouse to play, are we?" he said at last with a grin.

"More like _il gallo_, I think."

Killian understood both the Italian word for rooster as well as the double meaning behind it at once and he chuckled while she unlocked the iron gate that had been intended once to guard the lives and the chastity of those within and keep predators of all stripes out. But the nuns were long gone and her room was not a Spartan cell with only a single cot and a crucifix that the sisters had made due with to keep their vow of poverty, it was comfortably appointed and had come with a bottle of red wine and a heart-shaped box of chocolates for the holy day that had become a secular celebration of romance, clearly meant to be consumed by two. Times certainly had changed, the previous residents would have been completely forbidden from enjoying such decadent luxuries as feather pillows, high-thread count sheets and imported confectionery, let alone from being encouraged to entertain a man in their chambers.

Emma saw him eye the pair of glasses that had been left with the bottle, a hint of uncertainty crossing his handsome face in sharp contrast to his usual confident swagger.

"I do hope I didn't interrupt any other plans of yours tonight, angel."

_Jealousy._ She could see that as well, in the flush on his neck and the darkening of his eyes, a wisp of deadly sin rising between them in the room. Their affair had never included a vow of fidelity, but he always kept the promises he made and there were some things that were best left unsaid, they were too different and he wouldn't understand. So she didn't answer him with words, but in the press of her lips to his, a benediction in the soft slide of the kiss that had him stiff-backed and resistant for a moment with his arms at his sides until he relented with a low noise in the back of his throat that rumbled through her and did delicious things between her legs. Hands found her hips, large, dexterous, flexing along the curve and trailing along the strip of bare skin just above the waist of her jeans, under her jacket. His touch was always warm and it shouldn't make her shiver, but they'd always been a contradiction, the demon who prayed, the angel who sinned. In a deconsecrated convent where celibacy had given way to passion they defied all the rules like the martyred saint for whom the day was named, clothing falling to the floor in a mingled heap.

"Don't burn my jacket," she said in between kisses, trying to get it off to join his before Killian's usual impatience got the best of him and he scorched it into ash.

"Don't worry, I like the red leather jacket."

Emma laughed, "Really?"

A kiss was placed into the little dip in her shoulder as the jacket was peeled back that made another shiver down her spine while he murmured against her skin.

"Red leather...black lace...silky little unmentionables, I like them all very much on you. Let's go shopping tomorrow, I'll buy everything your heart desires."

There wouldn't be tomorrow, couldn't be, there could only be these few hours stolen from eternity when the world above and the world below were both shut away outside the door. Clothes shed without any casualties, Emma stepped out of the pile and pressed herself to him boldly from shoulder to shin, nipples tightening and feeling the ripple and flex of the muscles up the ladder of his ribs as she ran her hands along them. The heat blazed, enough to fog the mirror hanging above the chest of drawers, antique Venetian glass turning to smoke and blurring their reflection as if it was also hiding them from any divine or damned scrutiny on the other side while they tumbled down to the bed. Killian knelt above her, his blue eyes taking on a wicked gleam that immediately told her he was up to something. There was a ripple in the air and she felt another small weight settle on the bed by her elbow, when she looked down she saw it was the box of chocolates. Killian wound the pink satin ribbon tying it shut around his finger and gave a slight tug, pulling it off and lifting the lid to peer inside.

"So tell me, is this how one is meant to feast in honour of a saint?"

He held up a chocolate between his fingers and it immediately started to melt, dripping onto her chest in a warm drizzle while his grin turned wolfish like the predator he was and clearly, _she_ was the wayward lamb. His dark head bent and that silver tongue flicked out, capturing the drops that flowed down the valley between her breasts and tracing the sensitive curve underneath before going up the slope and wrapping around the taut peak of her nipple. Emma ran her fingers through his soft hair, arching up into the sensations as he carefully licked up every stray drop. The next piece had some kind of caramel filling, swirling in a sticky ribbon down her stomach when the chocolate coating broke apart. That too was caught by his mouth, the ache between her legs increasing with each lash of his tongue and scratch of his beard against the delicate flesh while he moved lower and lower, blue eyes glancing up from beneath those thick black lashes. Finally, finally, the chocolate was forgotten as he started to feast on something else in earnest, spreading her thighs apart and burying his face between them with a muffled groan that Emma echoed with her own cry at the sheer, unbridled pleasure being drawn with each slow and deliberate swipe and stroke. The supplicant kneeling at her altar, Killian was well-versed in this intimate rite and and a liturgy of sighs and moans spilled from her lips at his eager worship while she tightened her fingers in his hair and felt her back arch up off the bed and the strain of her wings as they longed to unfurl and let her take flight. His hands on her hips were an anchor that kept her from flying away until she was falling instead, a moment forever frozen in time as the angel in ecstasy.

Killian sat back on his haunches with an infuriatingly smug look, naked, his erection standing thick and proud and ready but he appeared to be in no particular hurry to use it, reaching over to take another chocolate out of the box and popping it into his mouth instead.

"You hate sweets."

The smugness only increased as her voice came out laboured and unsteady, while her skin was flushed as red as the rose all along the path that his mouth had wandered. The marks he had left would quickly fade, leaving her unblemished and uncorrupted once more when he was gone but the echo of them would linger on, reminding her that _uncorrupted _and _incorruptible_ were not the same things and playing with fire could end in a nasty brand.

"True," Killian agreed after he swallowed the piece. "Most are too cloyingly saccharine for my tastes, but some are more palatable than others, especially when paired with the right accompaniment."

His lustful gaze wandered over her and left little doubt as to what type of _accompaniment _he was referring to before he went back to the box and carefully perused what was left, selecting something that Emma couldn't see at first. The box vanished in a shadow and he revealed a flat, ebony disk that he flipped like a coin, drawing her eye to the movement long enough for him to unfold from his seated position and strike with serpentine speed. He loomed over her in less than a blink, a deadly viper in the form of a man. But instead of venom, his bite was full of the bitter taste of dark chocolate, pressed between their lips to dissolve on her tongue in a swirl of cocoa tinged with hints of cinnamon and spice. It was incredibly decadent, so rich that it was almost too much, velvet smooth and far from sweet.

It was utterly delicious.

The chocolate melted away and it was just Killian, only Killian, always Killian, the one temptation she could never resist and there was no resistance when he pushed inside, she was still pliant and slick and they moved in a languid dance, slow and unhurried. He braced himself on his forearms and rocked his hips in a steady rhythm, his body aligned with hers from the rub of his nose against her own when he dipped his head down for another kiss to the tender press of her breasts against his chest, their legs in a tangle and each slide of hard, male flesh sheathing deeper and deeper within her with each stroke until he was buried to the hilt, fitting perfectly with no space left between them. Darkness and light had once been one, in the beginning, and they were again before the inevitable separation that awaited them.

"Emma."

He lifted up, her infernal lover, his eyes deep pools of midnight while inky hair fell over his forehead. She scratched her nails lightly down his chest and left a golden trail of blessed light, flickering like the tail of a falling star.

"Yes?" she asked, knowing what he wanted but unable to resist teasing him just a little first. His jaw clenched and his eyes fell shut as the sensation ripped through him, making the cords on his neck stand out while he let out a deep groan that rumbled right through his chest and into her palms. A mortal man would have given in completely at such a jolt of divine ecstasy, Killian was more impervious. His eyes snapped open again and narrowed to a focus that would both thrill and terrify an innocent nun in equal measure. Emma felt him shift his hips, the thick drag of his erection hitting almost just the right spot with the movement and making her clench around him. He was focused on finding the angle that would make her fall utterly apart, thrusting shallowly for a few strokes and then sliding in deep. Her toes curled like petals and her hands clutched the muscular curve of his ass when he found what he was looking for, a dangerous grin spreading across his lips in response.

"Emma," he repeated, a clear note of command in his tone. "Say. It."

_Speak of the devil and he doth appear_. She knew what he wanted, more than just sex, he wanted her to _name _him and acknowledge his true form, the demon in her arms, inside _her, _to give him that power and give in to him completely. Unseen flames licked at her skin the same way his tongue had traced every inch, coaxing and cajoling, while his voice was the only one she heard, command turning to a fervent plea that drowned out everything else.

"_My blessed one, my angel, say my name. Say you want me, only me. Please!"_

It came out like the peal of a ringing bell, clear and sweet, the sacred wrapped around the profane. "Killian!"

Light flared incandescent, divine radiance meeting infernal fire and creating a conflagration that engulfed them both. Killian let out a near howl of triumph, bucking hard against her for the handful of thrusts it took to send them both spiralling into white hot bliss. His name spilled over her lips again and again, the broad shoulders shuddering in response to each while his face was buried in her neck. His inhuman pace faltered and finally went still, his limbs slack although something else remained stiff even as her voice turned to a feathery whisper and the fire slowly died down to embers. That too softened at last, and they cleaved apart once more.

"Lent is early this year."

He said it casually, as if he was just making idle, post-coital pillow talk. He used to smoke cigarettes afterwards, but that had stopped at some point years ago. Emma rested her head on his shoulder, feeling the steady beat of his heart under her palm.

"I know."

Ash Wednesday was only a few weeks away. Unlike the fixed dates of other feasts like the one currently being celebrated with flowers and candy it varied every year and on this particular liturgical cycle it fell early on the calendar, marking the start of forty days of fasting and repentance among the faithful. Emma was among them, forsaking earthly vices like chocolate and caffeine (and a blue-eyed demon who was the hardest of them all to give up) for six weeks and doing penance in hopes of absolution.

There was a resigned sigh from above and the arm he had wrapped around her bare back tightened a bit, holding her in place for a moment until he relented and loosened his grip.

"Well then, I suppose that just means it's over sooner."

They lay in silence, the minutes ticking back as time marched inexorably on even for two immortals. He had been gone over Christmas, departing as he usually did in late November just before the start of the Advent season, and Lent loomed just ahead of them in early March. The brief stretch in between was Ordinary Time, a reprieve from it all when she could pretend to be just Emma Swan and not an angel of the Lord.

For a little while, at least.

"I did, you know."

She lifted up slightly on her elbow and met Killian's confused look.

"You did what?" he asked, his brows knitting together.

"I missed you."

The smugness was gone and there was surprise instead, a boyishly pleased smile blooming like the rose across his face at her simple confession. He was even more dangerous like this,

when he asked for nothing and she wanted to give him everything.

She didn't do penance during Lent for herself. Giving everything else up was easy, which was precisely why she had to sacrifice _him._

"And I know you were goading on those two morons back in the square," she added, poking him in the ribs.

Killian didn't bother trying to deny it, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. "I had some time to kill and as you pointed out earlier, it's the feast day of a saint. Had to introduce just a little discord into all this soppy romanticism, I do have a reputation to maintain, blessed one. Besides, I knew you could handle them before they got too out of line. I had _faith._"

She made a non-commital noise at that and rested her head back down on his shoulder. The two men had thought they had the upper hand, seeing only a lone woman to tease and torment and nothing more. At least at first. She had given them a glimpse of her divinity and not held back, a halo forged directly from the light of a star, wings that were twice the height of a man, revealing her true form in all its Heavenly glory. She wasn't just Emma Swan and he wasn't just Killian Jones no matter what the season or the date on the calendar.

Emma felt his fingers thread gently through her hair and the rise and fall of his chest under her cheek, closing her eyes while he pulled the blanket over them. They could never be ordinary, but they could be like this, at least for a little while.


End file.
